Dimensions of Communication in Intercultural Marriages among the Tribes of Arunachal Pradesh,India

DOI: 10.5176/2301-3710_JMComm17.43

Authors: Yami Landi, Dr. Kh. Kabi

Abstract: McLuhan’s prophesy of global village has become a reality. Media technologies such as the internet, satellites and optical fiber have led to the intensive growth of social interconnections. We can now very well consider the world as a single place. This advancement has also led to rapid increase in cross cultural communication and social connections cutting across geographical boundaries. Communication process has become less complicated and easy in nature enabling people to not only connect to others but also provide scope and prospects for intercultural marriages, which are indeed, an exciting phenomena in today‘s world. Since marriage is an important revered social institution in all human society, it is pertinent to examine the impact of this trend in the human integration system and its effect in the inter-cultural marriages from communication perspective. The union of two different cultures in marriage can easily cause various complications to occur not just between the spouses but also in the respective community as a whole. As two different people coming together have to integrate two different set of cultures and values, it can create language, emotional and identity barriers, especially among the smaller tribal communities of Arunachal Pradesh, where, maintaining balance between traditional marriage system and the emerging trends of marriages between different communities is culturally and socially difficult and is still a challenging proposition. However, this intensification of social interconnection within the different communities also indicates progressive nature of the society which provides opportunities to promote multiculturalism and help maintain harmony and co-existence amongst the different tribes of the state particularly during hostile ethnic and intratribe conflict. It is at this backdrop, that this qualitative study examines the challenges and scope of the emerging trends in intercultural marriages between different tribes of Arunachal Pradesh through the prism of communication dynamics. A constructivist approach was adopted to identify various factors and issues related to communication within intercultural married families.